


Hell's Kitchen

by hikachu



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-12 03:22:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3341708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikachu/pseuds/hikachu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kinzo tries to make Italian cooking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell's Kitchen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akatokuro](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=akatokuro).



It's the pungent smell of something burning that wakes her up. Bice gets up slowly and stumbles a couple times on her way to the kitchen.

She's sick and can't breathe through her nose and is expecting to find lunch, forgotten on the stove, ruined. Perhaps the room will be full of smoke.

What she finds, instead, is slightly worse and better at the same time.

"Kinzo…?" Bice blinks.

Kinzo turns around at once, shoulders stiff and eyes wide like a thief caught red-handed. He opens his mouth to say something, to explain perhaps, but in the end he says nothing and only manages to look silly. He's blushing.

Beatrice laughs and touches his arm with the tips of her fingers.

"I see that Japanese men lack any talent for Italian cooking," she leans forward, against his chest, to look at what was once tomato sauce.

"And I heard that Italian witches do, too," Kinzo holds her then, because he's afraid that Bice will fall, weak as she is, and because he's missed her. "You are burning up," he says, quietly, when his forehead touches hers.

Bice doesn't seem to hear him, or perhaps she just thinks it's not important right now. "You haven't quite reached my level yet, though: if it were me, that pasta would be black cinders. You need to work harder to improve your alchemy, Kinzo."

She has no idea how worried he was when he got a call from Nanjo, telling him, Beatrice-san is ill with a high fever, and must spend the day in bed. She doesn't know that his wife glanced at him, afterwards, and screamed, because he was pale like a corpse and covered in cold sweat; that she ran after him as he left, and Kinzo had to yell that this wasn't a behavior fitting the Ushiromiya head's wife to make her stop. Bice knows nothing of this, and it's fine that way.

And it's fine that he made a fool out of himself and that his little experiment to cheer her up failed, because Bice is still laughing anyway.

"Even if I studied and studied for the rest of my life, I doubt I could ever reach the level of the great Golden Witch," Kinzo says with a grin that betrays his otherwise serious expression. "For now, however, the great Golden Witch needs rest. I'll carry you," he adds.

Clinging to him, Bice chuckles. "I see that some men in this country still know how to treat a lady."

"Hey now, don't look down on us. Besides, who knows what would happen if we didn't show proper respect to a witch."

"Oh, that's true. I would be very, very upset. So upset that I would fly away on my broomstick and never, ever talk to you again."

Kinzo's hold on her tightens a little.

"I'm afraid that just can't happen. I put so much effort into kidnapping you, I would be a fool to let you go."

Beatrice laughs again, and when her laughter turns into coughs, Kinzo strokes her back until it dies down.


End file.
